


5 Times Cloud Helps Avalanche (+1 Time They Help Him)

by janazza



Series: FFVII Shenanigans [1]
Category: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake - Fandom
Genre: 5+1 Things, Cloud is not as cold as he pretends to be, Fluff, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23808979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janazza/pseuds/janazza
Summary: Everyone's a little wary of the ex-SOLDIER Tifa brought back to the bar claiming he's perfect for the upcoming job. He'll have to prove himself, and what better way than saving everyone's behinds?5 times Cloud Strife lends a helping hand a bit further than expected for your average merc.
Series: FFVII Shenanigans [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1753726
Comments: 110
Kudos: 728





	1. Wedge

**Author's Note:**

> I have just finished the game for myself, but spoilers will be kept minimal. This fic takes place technically before the demo with minimal spoilers (those being just about the character’s personal lives, but nothing about game events. However, some information will be AU). In this scenario, Cloud is doing odd jobs for Avalanche to prove his capability before the Reactor mission would take place.
> 
> Enjoy!

It wasn’t supposed to go sideways like that. Yah, they expected some reinforcements, but not to be separated like that, especially not alone with Cloud.

Cloud was an enigma. When Tifa introduced him, not even hiding the fact Seventh Heaven was a base of operations, Barret almost shot his head off right then and there. And at the same time, Cloud had no issue pointing his sword at an Avalanche leader’s throat. Was that even a sword? What even qualifies as a sword, because that thing’s taller than Jessie!? 

But y’know, Tifa had already proved herself, and said the guy wasn’t with Shinra in spite his eye color and familiar SOLDIER uniform. Heck, even his cats didn’t like him, and they were right about everything. One time, he brought a girl home and his cats wanted nothing to do with her. Turns out she robbed him blind. Never trying that again. 

So when his leader hated him and his cats even more, Wedge wasn’t too willing to get stuck with the guy alone. Which was fine because there would never be a reason for them to be alone. Barrett trusted him as far as he could throw him— wait, that doesn’t work. Barrett’s got a good arm. Anyway, he wouldn’t let Cloud out of his sight if he didn’t have to. It worked great, because Cloud would lead with directions shouted at him by Barret who took up the back with Jessie and Biggs, both of them carrying the bombs. Wedged found himself somewhere in the middle with his weapon in hand in case there were any surprises, whether that be Shinra or Cloud’s temper.

It’s just that he didn’t expect a surprise from above.

He hadn’t thought of anything when the ground shook. They were deep underground, under the main trains that circled the sectors. If not the actual trains, then the water pipes rushing gallons of egg-smelling water to Shinra bases rumbled. But maybe the decoy bombs were too good a distraction earlier, because the SOLDIER in front of him paused holding a hand up. 

“What’s the deal merc?” That was Barret. 

And for a moment he thought this was it. Ex-SOLDIER wasn’t so much an ex and no one would be there to feed his cats in the morning because he’d either be sitting in a Shinra jail cell or his head cleanly sliced off here and now.

But then Wedge could hear it, too, and his mind barely registered the hand that clamped around his wrist and the pain quickly inflaming it.

“Move!”

He couldn’t even see, but the sudden momentum of being pulled forward off his feet and sliding across shaking concrete left him reeling, and his right arm burst into fixated pain. The ricochet of crumbling concrete sent dust into his eyes, and he barely registered the SOLDIER towering over him then crouching to block his body from tumbling ceiling.

It lasted minutes, or seconds— he couldn’t tell. But Cloud was leaning back and checking his eyes. “You okay?” It was the first time Cloud had ever directly spoken to him, and Wedge could hardly handle the intensity of his Mako glazed stare. 

His head was spinning and his wrist felt like it shouldn’t be a part of his body. He bit his cheek. “Ugh, great.” 

This was supposed to be quick and easy, but it was anything but.

His wrist throbbed like nothing he’d ever felt, yet the SOLDIER simply crossed his arms and surveyed the damage. Jessie, Biggs, and Barret were nowhere in sight, likely on the other side of the collapsed tunnel. Wedge cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey, you guys okay?!” 

“Should’ve invested in comms,” the SOLDIER grumbled. “We’ll have to go around.” 

“Uh, I don’t have a map, but there should be an adjacent tunnel that’ll take us to the original meeting point. I think it’s. . . that way?”

He felt the SOLDIER’s eyes on him. “You think?”

“I mean—” _don’t panic_ “—the maps are a bit outdated, but I’m sure they’re all connected?” _Way to sound assertive there, dummy._

Cloud seemed to accept it, unfolding his arms and walking in the direction Wedge had suggested, not even looking back to see if Wedge was following. 

Okay, cool. Big strong ex-SOLDIER will get them out of this one way or another. Literally. He trailed behind barely keeping up with the SOLDIER’s strides.

“I’m sure the others are fine. I’ve known Jessie and Biggs for so long, and they’re menaces when they put their minds to it. Oh, and Tifa will be waiting at the rendezvous point anyway.” 

_And should be carrying potions_ , he hoped as his arm throbbed. 

The tunnels were wide enough to walk side by side, but Wedge chose to hold up the back.

“Man, I didn’t think the decoy would pack a punch like that. But I guess this area is pretty old, so we should have planned for—”

“Stop talking.”

He couldn’t help it, the words made him jump and he thought of the way his wrist ached, but he followed, nonetheless. 

He suddenly slowed as the tunnel opened up to some storage room, with gunmen bustling about pushing moving crates.

Where they crouched, Cloud looked over his shoulder at him with an intensity he didn’t like and said, “Get ready.”

And he did, swinging his gun from back to the front, his hand painfully on the trigger. He should say something, but instead he puffed his cheeks and waited for the chaos.

And chaos it was. Cloud jumped out at unspeakable speeds, slashing through his first soldier in milliseconds and continuing the momentum into a spin to slice another.

“Enemies from north entrance!” There was shouting and cries as others fell, bullets ricocheting and Wedge barely moved from his spot. 

“Reinforcements are arriving!” 

“Shit,” he could hear from Cloud even though the guy was a across the room. From his spot, he saw the flying drones honing in on the SOLDIER. “Wedge, cover me.”

He could barely hold the gun up right, and his fingers shook in anticipation.

He squeezed.

And his world speckled in black at the edges, and his arm felt like it were hit with firaga. Cloud was shouting and he could barely, barely aim, barely feel anything other than the screaming throb. 

Cloud was pissed. He hefted his buster sword back and swung it straight at the out of reach drone, letting go of the heirloom and running back to Wedge. “What the actual fu-” he started then halted.

Wedge didn’t look good and for a moment Cloud thought he’d been shot. But there wasn’t time for this. They’ll both be dead if he waits to check on him. Instead, Cloud pulled the gun from the boy’s hands, snapping the shoulder strap and taking it in both hands and aiming. He hadn’t used a gun in a years, but the motions came natural, and moments later the next machine went down in flames. The remaining shoulders didn’t think much of a SOLDIER with a gun until it was too late for them, and as the last officer went down, the storage room was left in a heavy silence.

He dropped the weapon.

“You still with me, Wedge?” 

Coming back to where the Avalanche member hid, Cloud couldn’t help but panic. White as a sheet, Wedge breathed heavily but in time gave a weak thumbs up with his left hand, his other held close to his body. “Peachy.”

He sighed. “Then what was that?”

He seemed to weigh his options then, and Cloud was not in the mood for this. They were already behind schedule as it is, and going at Wedge’s pace wouldn’t help.

“. . . It’s my arm. When the ceiling collapsed.”

Cloud didn’t remember Wedge getting hit. He made sure of it, considering Wedge had stood at the epicenter. If Cloud hadn’t pulled him out of the way—

Then it dawned on him.

His arm.

Oh.

His right arm, where he had grabbed Wedge before the concrete could smash his head in.

“Did I break it?”

Wedge was taken back at his nonchalance. “I don’t think so? It just hurts like hell. I couldn’t keep a grip on my gun— actually, where is it?”

He'll have to apologize later for ripping it off the guy, and also find his sword, too. Meanwhile, he knelt beside Wedge holding his arm out to take Wedge’s injured one. The boy seemed to shake when he took it, but Cloud’s touch was gentle. Bruising formed slowly. Maybe hairline fracture based on Wedge’s reaction. Nothing horrible, but it would leave him out of commission and especially unable to handle the drawback from a weapon. 

“It’s fine. Biggs is carrying all our potions, so once we find the others, I’ll be fine.” 

The SOLDIER hummed, then reached into the small pouch on his hip. “Or we fix it now.” He pulled a small, green materia that Wedge didn’t recognize. For a moment, he thought he meant to finish the job. No witnesses. No blame. But then Cloud eyed him carefully. “It’ll feel weird. Tell me if it hurts, that means something’s out of place.” Then he was suddenly soothed in warmth.

The throbbing dissipated and a honey sweetness coated his tongue. It wasn’t perfect. There was still lingering pain, but it didn’t take up every inch of his consciousness. He looked in awe at the SOLDIER. “Healing materia are rare, how’d you even get a hold of one?”

The SOLDIER exhaled loudly as he slid the small orb back into its pouch. Did he look slightly paler? “I have my ways. Better?”

“So much better!” He used his own materia on him! This was probably the closest thing he would ever get to an apology from Cloud, using his own rare materia and energy to heal him.

“Good. Next time, let me know.” The ex-SOLDIER guided him to his feet, then spotting his sword and Wedge’s gun, made off to grab them. “Time to go.”

Then it was like before, with Cloud leading and Wedge trailing behind, not a single word as they walked. He guessed that was the end of Cloud’s sociability at the moment, but Wedge felt warm even after the materia’s glow had long dissipated at Cloud’s indirect apology. 

He thought he was gonna like this merc.


	2. Jessie

There were multiple things about Jessie that made her stand out in the slums. Skin too unflawless that rumors assumed her to be a daughter of an upperplater who fell out of graces, sometimes accused of love for a slum boy who broke her heart. Others believed her to be unnative to Midgar, even hilariously one night in a pub a man calling her an Ancient, which if you don’t know your history could be a pretty big insult. Cheeks that never seemed to flush at whatever was thrown her way made it seem impossible to get under her skin. Untouchable.

In the end, Jessie stood out among the good people of the slums and the sewer rats she traded information with. With doe-eyes seemingly too innocent for Avalanche’s bomb maker meant she had dealt with her own fair share of idiots who underestimated her, or ignored the fact Biggs was standing right next to her and ready to knock out anyone who gave the wrong look. Oh, to have two big brothers. With all her hair slicked back in a perfect, long, and she meant _long_ , ponytail that swayed with every step, with every move of the head and bounce in her step, Jessie Rasberry never went unnoticed.

It’s just a good thing a big, scary SOLDIER followed her like the good bodyguard he was on their way to bomb a bridge, and not because of any slummers or thieves. 

She wasn’t new to this, not by a long shot. But this was her first time working with this compound, and lo and behold, it’s super fucking sensitive. Like, so sensitive she didn’t even make it halfway to the target before Cloud realized something was off. A shame, really. Just when she finally managed to dig under that armored exterior of his. 

And boy did he blush, being the type that spreads to the neck and shoulders. Poor thing was almost making this too easy. Barret had already gave her a proper warning that she blatantly ignored because she could count the number of SOLDIERS she'd ever _seen_ , let alone got to talk to. In her opinion, Barret was freaking out for no reason. If Tifa trusted him (which, she still needed to investigate just how close they actually were), what more could he want? 

Cloud was ignoring her at this point, eyes trained forward and trying to tune her out even though his cheeks were still red. And, Gaia, did she grin like some devil.

She leaned in close at this point as they walked, trying to reach his ear as she carried the ugly little bomb in her hands. In a sultry voice she knew would surely break him, she leaned in and said, “You know, after this I know a pretty good bar over in Wall Market. Cheap, sympathetic of Avalanche, with rooms.”

She didn’t remember much of the night, and not because of any fun escapades. The bomb was meant to take out a major transport route to stop arms and resources from reaching Shinra warehouses within this sector. Her job was to ensure it was set properly to destroy the support beams then hit the controller’s button once they were a safe distance away. Actually, they were all supposed to go on this mission, but really it was supposed to be a walk in the park, and Cloud didn't say no to her. It’s just a shame that in the middle of flirting with the cute SOLDIER who finally looked at her, he ripped the tightly constructed bomb from her hands and chucked it like it were a baseball, turning back to her to cling to her just as her world erupted in bright flames and thundering debris.

Yah, no. It wasn’t supposed to start a fire. It wasn’t even supposed to implode at the radius it did, but Jessie wasn’t really all there after the first flash of light and Cloud shouting her name.

* * *

She woke to even more shouting that sounded a lot like the boss, making her headache pound like the time Barret accidently whipped her across the skull with his gun arm. 

“Can ya shut up?” She grumbled hoarsely. Gaia, was that really her voice? It sounded like a fork in a sink disposal. 

There were hands on her arm and another lightly pressing her stinging cheek. 

“Jessie?”

Who else? “That’s me.”

“You’re alive!”

God. No one had any idea what indoor voices were. Actually where was she?

“You’re in Seventh Heaven. Cloud carried you back.”

Back? Back from where—

It all flooded back in a disturbing array of thoughts and images. Bomb. Her bomb. Bridge. Ticking too early. Leaning in close to watch his skin flush up close. They hadn’t even set the charges when Cloud— could he hear it? Hear the charges set—?

She turned her head carefully, eyeing where she had heard the shouting. She knew she sat on a couch in the basement, and Barret and Cloud stood face to face and a little too close to be anything but hostile off in a corner. But both’s eyes were trained on her. 

“You saved my life.”

Barret flinched from Cloud when she said it, as if he were the one burned. 

Someone placed a cool cloth against her cheek. Beside the couch was a bowl of ice chips. Dabbing the cloth were it was most sensitive and hushing her hisses stood Biggs. “He did. Carried you all the way here, right Cloud?” He said it loud and obvious, and she looked back to the SOLDIER.

Said man clenched his teeth, but nodded. “Right,” he said before turning his gaze to Barret who in turn stepped close. Dangerously close. She thought she saw him raise his gun. But he only whispered something her still ringing ears couldn’t hear before leaving the room. Cloud only clenched his teeth, but otherwise he leaned against the far wall as Biggs guided her to sit up. 

Despite it all, she was grinning a dopy smile. “You looked pretty cool with explosions going off behind you.” 

Cloud wouldn’t look at her.

Biggs rolled his eyes. “I’m sure he did.”

“You should eat something!” From behind her, Wedge lent over placing a bowl of said _something_ in her lap. Ratty stew?

“Right right. Gotta keep up my good looks.”

Something shifted in the air then that she didn’t like.

She looked at the boys around her and their wary faces. Stupid men, never explaining themselves. “What’s up?”

Wedge, winced and scratched the back of his head before going through his pockets. “I mean, I don’t want you to be upset. You’re pretty no matter what, but—“

Oh no. She snatched the pocket mirror out of his hand the moment he pulled it out and she saw. . . She saw—

“My hair!”

Ends crisp, the front (how didn’t she notice) singed. Not only that, but when she pulled it back, her forehead was red and ugly with layers of skin gone. 

“Holy shit.”

* * *

  
  


The next day was quiet. Barret didn’t want her home alone in case of a concussion, so she found herself stuck in the bar, legs swinging as she sat on a bar stool. 

“When will Tifa be back?”

From where he stood at the dartboard, Biggs groaned. “Already told you: reconnaissance is tricky. She’ll be back when she gets back. Likely tomorrow morning or evening, and asking again won’t change that.”

“But I can’t wait that long!”

“Jessie, your hair’s fine. You should ask that old Marle to do it for you if you’re that desperate.”

“Have you seen her? No way.”

“Suit yourself.” He pulled back his arm, just so, tongue out like an idiot, and— 

It didn’t even hit the dart board as he spun around ready to knock out whoever entered—

“Oh, Cloud. You on babysitting duty?”

“Huh?” He’d barely even walked through the door and was dumping her onto him? What is wrong with her team?

“Great, thanks man. I’m gonna catch a smoke break. “ He mock whispered, “Watch her, she likes to sneak away when you’re not looking.”

That asshole. He was already out the door before the blonde even registered what was going on. Just great. She groaned and set her head against the table. Another unsympathetic male in her midst. 

Maybe this was payback for all she’s done. Maybe if she was a better person, this wouldn’t be happening. Even after Tifa fixed her hair, the burns wouldn’t go away. Hell, she was lucky to still have her brains, her torso considering she’d been holding the bomb like a baby. She’d already wondered if she hadn’t moved close to speak to Cloud that maybe it wouldn’t have been just a mild scare. If she had gone alone like she originally planned, maybe there wouldn’t have been anything left, no one able to find her—

“You want me to do it?”

She startled. Not sure what the man was asking her, she twisted her head to look up at the SOLDIER that saved her life, his hands on his hips, staring at her hair. Oh my Gaia. She put her head back down.

“Oh please, like you’ve ever been around scissors,” she mocked. 

There was a pause, but when he spoke he sounded closer. “I used to do my mom’s. It’s not perfect, but I’ve even cut Tifa’s.” 

She hadn’t thought of that. She knew Tifa was an only child and her mom not around. Did she really trust the guy with the biggest blade she’s ever seen with her hair? 

She looked at him and saw the seriousness. He was genuinely offering. Cloud Strife. To cut her hair. 

“Well, it’s not like it could get any worse. Sure.”

He winced at that. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was my fault for not testing the compound beforehand.”

He seemed to consider her words, tension leaving his shoulders and she couldn’t understand why, before moving behind the bar. “Sit up. I’ll find some scissors.” 

As he turned his back to her on his way to raid the bar's junk drawers, it was then she noticed just at the nape of his neck and the back of his arms the reddish pink tint and the layers of peeling skin.

* * *

His cigarette wasn’t laced with something right? He didn’t do that. No spells were cast on him, and he’d only been gone a few minutes, right?

Was Cloud Strife holding a pair of the world’s tiniest baby scissors (those had to be Marlene’s) chopping off his best friend’s hair?

“How’s that?” Cloud asked, and Jessie pulled at the new existent bangs. Bangs!

“Just a little shorter.”

Shorter!?

Cloud seemed to have noticed him then and pursed his lips. Even so, he did as she asked.

He was hallucinating. What a weird cigarette. 

But then he pulled her hair back, the bangs falling out, and fixing it in a high pony tail. A red cloth that had been on the bar table was pulled just at her forehead where the worst of the burns were and tied around the back and—

Oh wow. 

She was really cute.

* * *

"C'mon, let me properly thank you! Just one little date!"

"Not a chance."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Call this cathartic because I’m ready to hack my own hair off. 
> 
> Up next is Biggs.


	3. Biggs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some wonderful art was made for this chapter by Gevoel (axl-chalieux) that you can find [here](https://axl-chalieux.tumblr.com/post/618569476246536192/made-this-little-casual-cloud-after-i-read-5)  
> Thank you!

He guessed he should’ve expected it. A life as Shinra’s enemy was but a small one. 

Another punch sent him reeling but unable to get away. 

“Tell me where they’re hiding!”

With one eye swollen shut, he didn’t see the fist pulled back and connecting with his cheek for the dozenth time. The moment he sat back up, another one hit his temple and he saw stars. 

“Forget it, private. We’ll hand him over to the Turks. That way he won’t lie.” The private, helmet removed and sweating buckets, knelt back.

Good. He wanted to enjoy his teeth for as long as he could. It’s just a shame he doesn’t know when to shut up. “Really? Can’t handle a single rebel on your own? Shinra must hire anyone these days.” Plus, moving him meant no one would find him, and the gang deserved at least some closure when they found his body. He grinned at the sentrymen. “Yah, keep rolling your eyes and let me know when you find a brain back there.”

“You little—”

A swing connecting with his jaw.

“Piece of—”

Another left his whole jaw numb and tingly.

“Shi—”

The punch never connected, and Biggs barely heard the slide of metal and meat between the throbbing of his head. But when he looked up, he was met with the tip of a sword peeking out of the private’s chest, a sword he’d come to recognize instantly. When unsheathing from the guard, the body fell limp, and Cloud wiped the blood off on the man’s uniform. And as dryly as the day he met him, Cloud said, “Jessie says you’re a magnet for trouble.”

Dry. Such a dry sense of humor he couldn’t tell if Cloud was giving him a report or telling a joke. 

Cloud knelt down to undue the binds at his feet and hands as Biggs retorted, “I like to think it gives a bad boy look.”

The SOLDIER huffed at that. “The eye steals the show”

Yah, that would be a while to heal up. “A scar would have been nicer. I could tell Marlene how I fought off a beast, maybe a behemoth lurking in Shinra’s labs.”

“Or you can tell her you cracked your head while running away.”

Biggs winced. “You heard about that?”

“We all heard that,” he said tapping his ear and the new comms the SOLDIER had swiped from a Shinra convoy. It was maybe the smartest investment (okay, not actually an investment) that Avalanche (actually, it was Cloud) had made. It meant even on someone’s day off, they could be reached in seconds across the sectors. Jessie and Wedge made a schedule of what channels to be on so as to avoid anyone listening in. And of all days that Cloud actually got a day off, probably just sitting in the bar as Tifa worked, he’d been listening in on their mission. 

Speaking of day off. . .

He’d blame it on his raging headache for not noticing it sooner, but once he did it was all he could look at. 

“Wow, I didn’t know anyone could be so pasty.”

Biggs never really thought about what a SOLDIER would wear on their day-off, and boy did it not disappoint. Shorts. Actual shorts showing off skin that only saw the sun probably never?? Paired with a ratty t-shirt and his bandolier to carry his sword and, wow, what a weird image. No one would believe him to be a cadet, let alone a SOLDIER, but some teenager that just rolled out of bed.

“I didn’t come all this way to pick up your ass for this.” He tore off the remaining binds and helped Biggs to his feet. “You think you can walk?”

He tested his weight. “How far we talkin’?”

“Few miles.”

“Miles?”

“They dragged you to Sector Five to hand you off to a Turk,” Cloud explained as the two stepped out of the rundown shack. There laid bodies, all Shinra’s, lining the alley in varying states of completion. Maybe he should be thankful his nose was already filled with dry blood. 

“I’m lucky you caught up to me then.”

“As long as I’m paid.”

In disbelief, he turned to his savior. “You’re telling me you hitched a ride to Sector Five—”

“Ran”

Holy. “—Ran to Sector Five for gil?”

He hummed. “Money talks.”

Doesn’t he know it, but that’s not what he was getting here. Cloud wasn’t even on the mission with Biggs, so he must have got word over the comms and, somehow, found out where they were taking him, booked it for hours (because he’d been in Shinra custody for over half a day by now), and took out every obstacle in his way, and it showed with every body they passed. 

It wasn’t pretty, that was for sure, but he had to give credit where credit was due. Cloud saved his life tonight. Whatever Turks were going to pick his brain until he told them everything would go home empty handed, and him hopefully asleep for the next twenty-four hours. Cloud guided him like he a Sector Five native, shifting down different streets and alleys until eventually Biggs couldn’t keep up. He leaned against some shack, trying to breathe right.

“Just give me a minute.”

A chill left him shaking, but that could also just be the exhaustion. It would be a very long night for the both of them. 

Or so he thought until Cloud crouched beside him. Pulling his sword from his back with a sighed he huffed out, “Get on.”

He stared bugged-eyed, or however bugged-eyed a man could with one swollen shut.

Cloud sighed impatiently. “Option one is to leave your ass. Second, sling you over my shoulder, or third, you hurry up and get on. I’m not offering again.”

Gaia. Okay, sure. He carefully leaned over, and Cloud secured Biggs’ legs around him, the man linking his arms around the SOLDIER’s shoulders. Cloud picked up the buster sword before moving again with Biggs carefully. . . piggybacking on a SOLDIER.

“You think about telling anyone, I drop you. Are we clear?” Voice monotone as ever, as if giving a command. He was already moving in the direction of Sector Six. 

With a smile in his voice, Biggs answered. “Crystal.” 

* * *

“Cloud?”

“I swear to Shiva-- I’m not a babysitter. Find someone else.”

“No,” Biggs said as he sat in the bar, his swollen eye healing nicely along with the bruises. Upon getting back to Seventh Heaven, Cloud had whipped out a healing materia from nowhere and rid of the worst aches, which he was grateful for. Now, once the initial welcome backs and debriefing over (Plus, Barret mocking Cloud’s state of underdress), Avalanche’s members went their own ways with Biggs planning to sleep in the basement in case any troops came snooping. Cloud was getting ready to head his own way when Biggs caught his attention. “I was just gonna say thanks. I owe you one.” 

The SOLDIER rolled his eyes. “Don’t get caught again, and we’re even.” 

“How about I take a look at the sword sometime?” he offered, then quickly put his hands up when the SOLDIER’s eyes darkened. “I don’t mean anything by it. It’s just pretty banged up, is all. When’s the last time you’ve had it professionally sharpened?” Not that it didn’t work well as it was. Hell, it could be flat and curved as a club, and Cloud would surely bludgeon whatever to death just as easy.

Cloud raised a brow and crossed his arms, waiting impatiently by the front door. “You calling yourself a professional?” 

“Touché. But, it wouldn’t be my first. Weapons don’t come easy down here, and vendors even fewer who’ll work with you more than once. You pick it up quick.”

“Sure, fine,” Cloud said, already heading to the door as he stretched. “I’ll swing by the ‘neighborhood watch’ sometime.” Then he left.

Well shit. He’d sneak back home tomorrow to find his better tools and hidden stashes. Shitty homemade gun oil wasn’t going to be enough for a giant ass buster sword.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Cloud will sleep when he's dead. 
> 
> Up next is Tifa!


	4. Tifa

The Sector Five slums were an arrangement of debris formed into buildings and pathways that climbed high up then suddenly dropped, with ladders needed to keep the monsters that scurried at the bottom from reaching the makeshift homes. Those that didn’t live in the main hub of Sector Five lived among the rubble and junk. Apparently, if you looked, it was possible to find flowers growing in corners and nooks, not that those living there would willingly share. 

It had its own charm and bearable for many, but not so much when you’re trying to outrun Shinra.

Because nothing was ever easy for Avalanche. She learnt that a long time ago as mission after mission went sideways and on more than one occasion, she thought they wouldn’t make it out alive. She was lucky, really, that the bar wasn’t popular for Shinra troops or else they would have been found out. A hideout under the floorboards is still a hide out, and only so many pleasantries with the occasional troops could keep her heart from pounding out of her chest.

But in Sector 5, she thought it was all fair game. The anonymity should give them the upperhand to walk freely and trade information, pick up the last explosive powder Jessie would need and mosey out without a care in the world. 

Yet an ambush forced her away from her group as the team scattered. Biggs would take care of Jessie, she was sure of it, and Cloud had already shoved Wedge down an almost too narrow pathway before booking it himself running straight for Shinra like the bull-headed idiot he was. No time for that. She took out a few of her own Shinra guards before splitting off with Barret on her heels before he took another route. The streets still bustled with people, and shoving past proved a challenge as others turned to the callout from Shinra troopers until they started firing. 

All hell broke loose and the streets cleared like cockroaches creeping into every crevice leaving Tifa right in their line of sight. At ground level, she bolted, pushing past the few who came out to investigate as bullets spit past her head. She side-stepped into an alley, ignoring how the muddy, wet ground ruined her shoes and slid beneath a fallen pole. 

She could hear the dogs now, and when one nipped at her feet, she made for a chain linked fence, hopping over with ease and the animals barking madly but never getting closer. She thought herself in the clear until entering the main street, and a sort of blockade of infantrymen with their guns pointed directly at her.

They screamed for her to halt just as the first bullets speared just past her arm and she feared what would happen to Marlene with her gone. Until a block of ice grew so large as to block off the entire array of bullets until they paused all together.

Her comm fuzzed to life in her ear. “ _I’ll handle them. Barret said the roofs are clear east and will meet you there.”_ Short and simple as always from Cloud. 

But the roofs. She took the first ladder she could find all the while ignoring the crack of lightning and wale of thunder Cloud likely produced and booked it towards sector six to meet up with Barret . Hop a roof, then another, slide down a pipe to the lower section, only to body slam into a foot soldier and keep going. Keep going and going. She heard the ricochet of the infantry’s weapons as she climbed up and higher and the jumps between shacks grew dangerous. 

Missions often went array, but rarely was there much of a chase. Maybe trading information in the middle of the day wasn’t such a good idea. 

Crossing a rather narrow bar, her comm went off and there was shouting in her ear. “ _Chopper inbound!”_

Yah, like she couldn’t hear the roar of it’s beating blades as it closed in. She slid beneath a flimsy canopy, still keeping her momentum as bullets shot through the top. No time to stop. The bullets beat around her feet, but she was quick, and she zig zagged where she could and let buildings block her otherwise. Hop, slide, jump, roll. The sea of shack roofs and whatever else made it hard to keep balance, but stopping meant taking a bullet and an interrogation she wouldn’t survive. The metal was flimsy, and the bullets weren’t helping. 

But even as she saw, knew, the panel wouldn’t hold her weight, she was falling all the same, the sky fleeting as she fell feet first and the awaiting shock left her screaming. White hot pain laced her being, and she wouldn’t be surprised to learn she blacked out. She couldn’t breathe, seething between gritted teeth and tears baking her face as agony ripples through her as it laced her ankles and striking up her legs, and her ribcage too small for her dry heaves. 

Blood coated her mouth, likely from biting her tongue, and her world was nothing more than her shattered feet and the hole in the ceiling, not the monsters that initially ran scared creeping out of their hiding place and catching the smell of vulnerable human. 

Even when they came so close that she could smell them, she didn’t react. It’s not like she could run, could fight. Her ears thundered like the blades of the chopper searching for her. Hell, if Tifa was lucky, these guys would finish her off first, because at this rate, she didn’t think she’d hold off on any interrogation. Every little name and location. Maybe, with Marlene so young, they would put her in a good home. 

Those are nice thoughts. She closed her eyes agonizingly slow just as she felt the breath of the ugly red hedgehog kneel in front of her face, and the fireball building deep in its throat. 

But then came a slam of metal and the smell of blood and burnt cloth, a struggle annoyingly loud to her. There was shouting that grew softer and a shaking of her shoulder with gloves too cold compared to her heated skin. But it was when they touched her foot she finally screamed and looked up.

“Tifa?”

Cloud. Cloud with eyes too wide with Mako making them too intense to look at with that concerned face. 

She groaned around gritted teeth as he pushed her hair out of her face. “I’m okay.”

“No you’re not.”

“Good— good observation, there.” It was hard to speak. Hard to breathe.

But he was talking to her, and she could at least listen. “— still looking for us. Barret’s waiting for us, and we’ll take you to a doctor, okay?” He was shoving a green orb at her face she could barely focus on. “Have you used a healing materia before?”

“No. I’ve never even seen one.” She couldn’t even see straight, but she heard him curse loudly with a venom she thought he pointed at her.

“I can’t," he said tiredly. "I don’t have enough energy. I don’t want to cast it wrong and hurt you.”

Now that he said it, she could feel the tremble in his hands where he held her face gently. She knew he’d been using magic, saved her from bullets by blocking most of the Shinra envoy, but she hadn’t considered what toll that would have on his mako enhanced body. 

He was above her, saying her name and other things she didn’t really care to hear. “— carry you back. I’m going to pick you up.” 

He didn’t even give her time to protest, and the throbbing aches shot white hot again in an encompassing drowning way that took her breath as she screamed. Or maybe she didn’t scream, because suddenly speckles of black grew across her vision with her last memory being the feeling of something dripping onto her cheek. 

* * *

She woke to an ugly creaking fan above her head and a cat on her chest.

Not the worst way to wake up, she supposed, but she still had no idea where she was. And upon realizing she laid in a bed with whiny springs, the snoring occupant in the room snorted but nonetheless slept soundly. A man she didn’t know, older and likely a friend rather than enemy. But where was everyone else? Once eyeing a door, she urged the cat off her lap and tested her bandaged feet. 

There still laid an ache, like bruises deep and almost unbearable but gone just as soon as she stepped off of them. Where were her shoes? 

She crept from that noisy bed and made her way out. 

From there lay a tiny living room, with chairs too small for Barret and the man himself—

And Barret spotting her instantly with a cry, “Tifa!” And nearly bulldozing into her. “What are you doing out of bed? Sit down, sit down,” he scolded with the same softness he used with Marlene. “You look better. You were white as ghost when merc brought you back.”

“Cloud? Where is he? Where is everyone?”

Jessie slipped in then, carrying a cup of water she quickly shoved into Tifa’s hands. She must have heard the commotion. “Good to see you up. That dummy is off looking for some light work. Everyone else is making sure we can get back to Sector 7 okay.”

“Shinra’s nosing around still lookin’ for us,” Barret commented. 

Jessie smiled faintly. “Just as you guys got to the meet up point, Cloud collapsed.”

“What? Why is he even out there then?”

“I think he felt bad, y’know? Couldn’t protect you. After he collapsed, Biggs and Wedge carried him. Barret got you and all of us here to Mr. Yamaguchi.

“He was a doctor in the Wutain war,” confirmed Barret. “He took good care of ya.”

“And Cloud?”

“Just fatigue. You should’ve seen him, Tifa! I’ve never seen a Blizzaga before! And then he swept up all the gunners chasing me and Biggs in this tornado like it was nothing. But,” she said shyly, scratching the back of her neck, “I guess it took its toll. But Yamaguchi gave him a good pick-me-up and he was gone as soon as he could walk.” 

That wasn’t good. “Does he still have his comm?”

Jessie smiled now. “Yah, you can have mine. Bring soldier boy home.” She winked as Tifa got up once more to enter the bedroom for privacy. The doctor still slept soundly, and noticed the deep wrinkles and flaws to his skin, his hair thinning out much like her master’s had been the last time she’d ever seen him. To be hiding in Sector Five. . .

“You there, Cloud?”

She waited patiently, knowing he could be on a job, could be in public, could be collecting his thoughts. Eventually, she heard his voice a bit softer than she remembered. “ _You okay?”_

“Right as rain. Where are you?”

“ _Wererats in a park. Don’t know the name. We heading back yet?”_

“Soon. I’m up and ready to run,” she lied with smile hiding her deceit. 

“ _You sure?”_

“Yep, which is why you should hurry back so I can thank you in person and head back. I need to get the bar ready.” That would get him running.

_“There’s no way you’re working, Tifa.”_

She grinned to herself, letting it slip into her voice. She’d make him stop avoiding her. “I know.”

 _“You know?”_ Ah, now he was catching on. 

“I’m gonna need some help and I think it’s time I promote you from mercenary to busboy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tifa's used to dealing with a stubborn, moody Cloud. 
> 
> Up next is Barret (god help us all).


	5. Barret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As it was pointed out to me on FF.net, I thought I should make note I’ve never played the original game. The bulk of my knowledge comes from the Remake and my personal fascination with the franchise and looking up things. I’ve taken creative liberties for how materia would work as I saw fit with the Remake along with other factors. Anyway, so there may be things unfitting to canon.  
> I’d also like to note this might tip into spoiler territory. . .

If Barret had a single gil for every piece of bullshit he’d handled in his life, his daughter would be in the best school, living in the best house, with a live-in maid that made crepes every morning while he sat on the deck reading Shinra’s thousandth apology and reconstruction plan in the newspaper. 

And yet life gave him Cloud Fucking Strife: grade A asshole and entrepeneur of his own dumbass club and  _ somehow  _ slowly stealing Barret’s crew’s favor as if he hung the stars. And he had no idea why. 

Because, yah, kid’s an asshole. It says so right on his smug face. If not for the Gil, Cloud wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t have even heard Barret out or listened to how the same energy that gave him superstrength was leaving the planet dry. How can anyone look around at Midgar’s state and think it normal? Drought, disease, famine, the sector slums left to rot in heaps of garbage that the upper plates threw on their heads. 

They’re kids grew up thinking chocobo aren’t wild animals that roamed in fields upon fields of grass. Shit, they’d never seen an actual lush lawn. And that’s what Barret fought for. 

Cloud fought for Gil. 

If not for his connection to Tifa, Barret wouldn’t even be able to afford him, his first quotes being utterly ridiculous. HQ wouldn’t even pay that. Just because he says he’s First Class (SOLDIER  _ and ASSHOLE),  _ doesn’t mean he had any sort of credibility. 

He didn’t know what to think about a man who could join Shinra, but he knew less in how to trust a man that could join Shinra then slice infantrymen like slabs of meat and not men that maybe once admired him. Wanted to be him, maybe, because Barret remembered the days of Genesis fanclubs. Did Cloud ever know these men? Learn their names? Probably not, judging by his cold calculated indifference to everything else.

That didn’t mean Barret didn’t need dirty hands to do dirty work. He didn’t tell Tifa, would never ask his loyal teammates to do this with him.

As the essential tanks of their crew, it meant moving swiftly and efficiently wouldn’t be an issue, as the few guards they did catch the attention of went down in seconds. Bullets ringing out to catch their attention, then a buster sword sinking into their sides with a ruthlessness he never used when Tifa was on mission, he noticed. Efficient but dirty. Biggs told him about what happened in Sector Five.

It’s why he knew Cloud would do it if he told him to.

Shinra’s construction ran just as deep as it did high, with tunnels and pockets, storage and anything you could think of running beneath the sectors. Rumor had it just beneath Sector 8’s theater held Loveless’s cast and crew like performing monkeys in cages. Idiots didn’t think those posh theater geeks wouldn’t give their left foot to be there anyway. But further than that, beneath the trains and service tunnels hid terrible things and terrible people.

Rumors may be rumors, but carried some truth. After so many SOLDIERs deserted years ago and fewer recruits coming in, there had to be a good reason, and a tip said Shinra’s research department carried no ethical oaths. Guess that explains how SOLDIERs could exist. Guess that’s why there’s entire creepy sub basements and tunnels only accessible by elevators like the ones in Corel’s coal mines: rickety and delving so deep that concrete dampened into caked sludge that stuck to their boots and left a sour smell nearly making Barret gag. Like shit and overcooked eggs. 

Despite the source even being ex-Shinra, a secretary for a lowly scientist but nonetheless having access to semi-redacted files, the opportunity was too great. Leaving the coziness of his penthouse in Shinra Tower, little Mr. Vice President Rufus Shinra should be overseeing the presentation of a particular experiment, perfect for nabbing or dealing with as seen fit when the opportunity arises, even if that meant putting a bloody red target on Avalanche’s head.

“Quit monologuing and keep up.”

“Shut it, merc.”

The kid was getting on his nerves. He barks and nips a lot for someone with little to show for it. Hell, he asked that ex-secretary to find anything on Cloudy’s ugly mug and found nothing. That could mean only a couple of things: his source didn’t have access, Strife pissed off Shinra enough to want him buried, or he ain’t sharing the truth. 

Still, he had the mako eyes that bore straight through you and Barret was glad on more than one occasion for his sunglasses. Not that Barret has ever backed down. Eventually Strife seemingly lost interest, but he knew the stupid merc gritted his teeth when tense. Shit, Marlene would barely stay in the same room as him. And if he’d learnt anything in all his years it’s that kids usually knew something you didn’t. 

So he kept his eye on him, waited for the moment he went traitor. Already, Barret screamed and nearly blew the kid’s head off when he learnt he went off alone with Jessie when the bridge bombing was supposed to be the whole team. That is, until Jesse explained she lied so they could be alone. Wedge admitted only the day before, talking nonchalantly with Biggs how Cloud snapped his wrist, and, by Gaia, Barret almost ran straight for the jackass’ shit house before Wedge said it saved his life. 

Every time he wanted to hate Cloud, someone was telling him otherwise. Biggs would’ve been Turk lunch meat if not for Cloud. Tifa would be literally eaten by hedgehog pies if not for Cloud and the dumb kid collapsing at Barret’a feet with a broken, whimpering Tifa. 

He was making it hard to separate the enigmatic asshole that snapped at any chirps sent his way or cut off any chatter not about his sword skills and the hero of his team’s stories. 

But that didn’t mean he had to like him. 

And he sure as hell didn’t. 

Because with every bitter word he snapped back at Barret, he waited for the real  _ snap _ , when he would one day think the jig is up and reach for his sword. When Cloud rounded corners up ahead too quickly, Barret always readied his weapon for a sword that would surely fly at him. He never turned his back to the SOLDIER, never trusted the drinks he made under Tifa’s watchful eye. And Shiva forbid he leave a SOLDIER around his Marlene. If he could break a grown man’s wrist? 

No, he’d happily put a bullet in his thick skull. 

It’s why it didn’t surprise him when they ended up on a boardwalk that looked down at an expansive room filled with bustling Shinra, some in lab coats and others in infantry uniforms. Lit by stretches of flood lights boring down on glowing tanks and canisters, men pulled some on dollies across the room or down the lower hallways. Cloud and Barret knelt behind several crates, scanning the room.

“Thirteen elites. Looks like four grenadiers. Hounds are leashed. Two Third Class at each lower entrance. Too many to be normal, not to mention the turrets, both bullet and rockets,” Cloud provided monotonously. 

“But no Rufus.”

“Better than there being Turks.”

Fair point. Well, this would be a waste of time. “And those tanks?”

There was a pregnant pause, and Barret looked over to the ex-SOLDIER whose eyes followed a trooper walking towards their hiding spot from the lower level, pushing a stocked trolly. He hadn’t spotted it at first, but squinting, inside that mako tank was. . . “A dog?” A huge dog, a breed he’d never seen before. Hairless like the other mutts he’d seen by Shinra, but its size rivaled a man. “Guess they really are experimentin’ down here. Can’t leave anything alone, can they?” 

He looked to Cloud again when he didn’t answer, and noticed the man’s fingers tighten where he fisted his hair. “Merc?”

Cloud only looked at him for a split second before suddenly standing up—

“—What are you doing merc? Sit your ass  _ down _ —”

—and stumbling back. And just as he knocked into a crate and tumbled the shit stacked on top of it, clipboards and coffee mugs and whatever other messes that could clatter on the boardwalk, growls and barks echoed below. 

He knew it.

He pointed his gun at the SOLDIER that slowly lost that glazed look and stared down the barrel. “You set this up, didn’t you?”

“Halt!” a trooper commanded.

Cloud only twitched his head to the side to avoid a stray bullet. “They’re shooting at me, too, dumbass.”

And they were. And the SOLDIERS were leaping onto the boardwalk as more entered the wide room below. If Rufus was here, they’d be securing him in the direct opposite direction of the chaos. “Shit shit shit.”

“There’s too many.” Cloud warned, taking out the Third just as grenadiers lined one side of the boardwalk.

“Oh, now you’re listenin’?”

“Shut up and run.” Bullets shot at the bottom of the boardwalk, whizzing past their feet and shooting up into the ceiling, as bombs shot their way.

They were running with their tails between their legs! “The hell was all that, merc? You trying to get us killed?”

He didn’t even have to look to know Cloud’s face pulled into something ugly. “Fuck off.”

Something whizzed past their heads and as it touched the ceiling exploded. Rockets? It’s like they didn’t care they were destroying their own territory! Rockets exploded against the walls and ceiling, the latter snapping the string of lights that fell as the tunnel flickered to black. Still, the tunnel glowed as their weapons fired. 

“We gotta get rid of them,” Barret shouted. The only thing keeping them from being shot was the bend in the tunnel meaning as long as they were fast enough, there wouldn’t be a clear shot. 

Cloud panted lightly beside him but nonetheless keeping up. “Can you cast wind?”

“At a time like this?”

“Can you?”

He felt for the materia pouch on his belt. Yah, he could do it.

“You smell that? That rotten egg smell?”

How could he forget it? It’d smelt horrible the moment they climbed down here with it lightening the closer they had gotten to that expansive room. He thought it to be the putrid sludge they stepped in, but with the way Cloud was looking at him. . . It dawned on him. How did none of Barret’s shots not light them up before? None of the rockets?

“There’s a leak up ahead. I’ll cast fire. You make sure we don’t burn up.” 

“Got it. Say when.”

At that, just as the tunnel began to lose it’s curve, soon to widen into the main entrance where an elevator would take them up and out of this death trap, Cloud pivoted and held his ground. “Now!”

Barret let the energy flow through him and circumference where they stood like a barrier as Cloud’s fingers lit, and just a flicker of fire cast down the tunnel towards the incoming troops and SOLDIERS. 

Then it engulfed, and even with his sunglasses, Barret squeezed his eyes shut just as the metal and rock sounded like thunder as it careened and bent and snapped. Everything bathed in darkness as he fell back and for a moment he thought he’d been crushed. 

Silence.

He couldn’t move, his right arm pinned down. He heard the muted curses before they called out to him. “You dead, old man?”

“The hell you calling old? Where are you?” He pulled at his arm, but the gun wouldn’t budge. Trying to reach for the latches that kept it in place met him with stone. Shit.

“Oh,” that stupid merc simply said. Of course he couldn’t see. Something in front of him was fumbling, then a snap of fingers and a sudden bathing of light as a ball of flame spun just above Cloud’s fingers.

Showoff. 

But with the added light, Barret could see their predicament. Parts of the tunnel collapsed, one side caving in and just unfortunately far enough in to pin his arm with fallen stone and support beam. And of course, not a single scratch on Cloud.

“Brilliant plan there, hotshot. Now we’re stuck.”

Cloud reached for his weapon slowly. “You mean you’re stuck.”

And all the blood in him froze.

He knew it, he was right all along. He should never have listened to Tifa, never backed down all those times Wedge talked him down. His gun was buried under rubble and even if he could get it out, likely useless. The SOLDIER had him right where they wanted him: alone, defenseless, easy pickings, with no one ever the wiser to the Shinra in Avalanche clothing. 

But just as quick as his heart seized, the SOLDIER spun around with his weapon drawn and the little light in Cloud’s hand flickering out as  _ something  _ pounced for the boy’s face. 

A struggle ensued that he couldn’t see, but he heard the clang of the buster sword hitting metal and slice of flesh and the squeal of a dying beast. 

Then, like ghosts, appeared the three red dots, shaped as a triangle. And there were more entering the room. Shinra infantry. He pulled at his pinned arm to no avail. The gun wouldn’t budge. And all he could do was watch as the space flickered as bullets rained in his direction. 

With Cloud between them holding his sword like a shield. 

“Here, make yourself useful.”

He heard the clatter of glass just beside his leg, and blindly patted the ground until finding the materia orb. He had no idea what it was, but he was about to find out. 

“Down, merc!”

A body squashing into the muck ground. He let the energy flow through him, encase him, scorched the tips of his fingers, and he wondered just what kind of hellish materia Cloud had given him as he felt the wind knocked out of him from its raw energy using him like a lightning rod.

And then he realized that  _ holy shit _ Cloud Dumbass Strife actually owned (probably stole) a summoning materia.

And he prayed that whatever god or goddess brought before them would bless them so he could go home to his Marlene.

He heard the thunderous stomp of it as he sat slumped against his confinement, so intense it shook the ground, misplacing mud and stone and pipes in a cacophony the threatened to bring the whole tunnel down with it, then it was silent. No shots. No growls. No swords. With a snap of Cloud’s fingers, what was left of the room bathed in light. 

Barret didn’t know what he was looking at until the yellow wall gave a loud and not so high pitch “Kweh!”

“Cloud.”

“Barret,” the SOLDIER responded.

“Is the gas getting to me or is that a fat ass chocobo blocking the entire hallway?”

“You sound like you prefer getting shot.”

Barret kept his mouth shut. He hadn’t even noticed, but his arm was free and lighter than he was used to. He didn’t even have to look to know the gun had been crushed.

“Let’s get going.” Cloud was already jogging towards the elevator, but Barret picked himself up and stared. Annoyed, Cloud crossed his arms over his muck covered chest and asked, “what?”

“You could have killed me.”

At that, Cloud sneered. “I didn’t. Using Wind kept most of the gas away from us. Risky, but calculated.”

“No, I mean you could have finished me off.”

He raised an eyebrow. “The hell would I do that?’ I’m still getting paid, aren’t I?”

Barret. . . was baffled.

Cloud hadn’t even considered it, and it showed on his irritated and just as much confused face.

Then what was that back in that lab? What startled him so bad to almost get them caught? 

“Can we hurry up? I can smell myself.” 

He didn’t know what to think about this ex-SOLDIER with no files, but he would be in Shinra custody if not for him (even if it was  _ also _ Cloud’s fault they were seen in the first place). He strode forward, passing the annoyed SOLDIER. "Man, Cloud, you really do smell like shit," he mocked, as he turned his back to him to head for the elevator with a pissed ex-SOLDIER on his heels. 

* * *

“Guess who shit himself!”

“Barret— has anyone told you you have a shit sense of humor?”

“Was that a pun?!”

“Wha— shut it.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, nothing prepared me for the fat chocobo materia. 
> 
> I can't say I'm proud of this chapter. It was gonna be initially a big banter, at each other's throats the whole way through ordeal, but there's something darker that Barret knows Cloud can do dirty work the others would shy away from. Barret needs him even if he doesn't like him, so they have to not piss the other off too much. Not so fluffy, but definite foreshadowing.
> 
> Nonetheless, it seems every member of Avalanche trust Cloud to at least not purposefully get them killed. Now let's see if they can do the same for him.
> 
> Next chapter: Cloud


	6. Cloud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I would like to note that this chapter will be very spoliery and not just the Remake. This wasn’t the original plan, but the more I wrote, the more I dipped into future events. Again, if you don’t know the character’s story, this is gonna delve into it and then some. 
> 
> I'm sorry for grammatical errors in advance. I should go back for editing by Sunday.
> 
> Thank you Gevoel (axl-chaliuex) for making this wonder art piece of casual Cloud! You can find it [here!](https://axl-chalieux.tumblr.com/post/618569476246536192/made-this-little-casual-cloud-after-i-read-5)

He woke to a sheen of sweat on his brown and dampening his hair, his breath too heavy and intrusive thoughts telling him to run.

But from what? He couldn’t remember. He didn’t know why, but since entering Midgar, things were far from smooth and sleep came in fits. He once woke outside his room, and old Marle shouting at him to stop trying to wake up her tenants. 

And today would be no different. Sleep would elude him so might as well start the day with a stretch and warm up taking out a few pesky wererats on the outskirts of town. Old Marle sat at the ass crack of dawn (even the plates’ under hanging lights were still blaring down on the slums) in her lawn chair with a mug of something smelling burnt. She’d noticed him before he even made it down the steps with her eyebrow raised. “Going somewhere?”

“Just looking for work.”

“Don’t you have a big job tonight? Tifa needs you sharp and ready.”

And doesn’t he know it. Tonight would be the mako reactor mission, which would stand as the most public declaration of war for Avalanche against Shinra. It would look nice on his resume. “No worries, Marle.”

The old woman scoffed but didn’t bicker further and to that he was grateful. He could already feel the headache coming on from his shit sleep and a crick in his neck. It’s gonna be a very long day. 

* * *

“You okay, Cloud?”

He didn’t look up from where he sat in the back of the stolen van deciding what materia to slot. The chatter and bustling of the team forced him to grit his teeth from the pounding behind his eyes. He doesn’t get sick, not since the Mako, but he could remember how hellish the flu was in his youth. Off days like these came and went to no surprise. Sometimes the world tinted green like the mako built up in his eyes, and in those times he took the day off, not that it always happened (ie: saving Biggs’ dumb ass). And there was no postponing today as they drove as close to Mako reactor three in Sector Four. He may be a bit off, but it shouldn’t endanger the mission. 

He answered Wedge with a wave of his hand. “Fine.” When he felt Tifa’s stare from the front of the van, he asked, “how’s your wrist?”

“Oh, totally fine now, thanks to you. I got some target practice in this morning and everything. Feels better than before, actually!”

Hmm, now Barret was definitely glaring holes into his head. The man twisted from the front seat to give him that stupid glare. “Next time you decide to play rough, don’t use my men.”

“I’m here too, y’know!”

“Don’t think now’s the time, Jessie.”

He looked up at Barret cooly. “Got it.” And he repeated what Barret had told him just after saving Jessie. “No more fuck ups.” _Or it’ll be your head._

That seemed to silence everyone. 

* * *

“You sure you’re okay?” 

He and Tifa stood at the car as the others began scouting ahead. Tifa would wait at the van as their getaway driver when all was said and done. 

“Marle said you were up before dawn.”

“Just clearing the junkyard.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Hurry up, Cloud!”

Tifa gave him one more look before getting back in the van. She would wait for them after blowing up the reactor. Until then, they’d make their way towards to the reactor, clipping the chain link fence that surrounded it. 

Shame they wouldn’t succeed. 

* * *

The issue with stealing a van just outside the train station and heading straight for the reactor is that Shinra was already looking for suspicious activity, and four beings with guns marching towards the reactor before entering a definitely monitored construction zone would be a huge red flag. Unlike the other sectors, Sector Three was mostly under construction, meaning mostly empty streets at night as workers left for other sectors where they lived but plenty of troops guarding equipment. Even reaching the reactor had been a hassle of passing large rebar cages and tons of stacked bags of concrete and sheets of metal that would crush the unenhanced like a bug if the cranes ever faltered. 

As they walked between crates and trucks, Jessie hummed to herself. “Y’know, this may be our biggest mission yet.”

“Guess that means we’ll have to celebrate after.” Biggs smiled warmly despite the growing tension. 

If they managed to get out. Hearing shouting somewhere in the distance behind them, too low for anyone to hear but him, Cloud commanded shortly, “Pick up the pace.”

At that, Barret swatted at him. “Easy, Merc, we do this right or you can turn your ass around unpaid.” 

They were getting closer. Had they already found them? “I’d worry about the next ten minutes, if I were you.”

“There you go talking out your ass, again.”

Trying to cool the group, Biggs ran forward towards the reactor building’s entrance, with unassuming double doors nestled between crates and supplies. Hard hats abandoned, someone’s lunch abandoned on top of one of the crates. Shit. 

Biggs called out, “We’re almost there. C’mon!” 

Just as an alarm sounded. 

Cloud was running before the building’s doors would open and dragging the man behind a crate just as bullets flew right where he once stood. 

“Get down!”

Avalanche scattered like insects.

“Cloud, get the turret!” Barret was shouting at him just as two hellhounds past through those same doors and going for the closest targets: him and Biggs. He pulled his sword in front of him just as the dog clashed its teeth into it, and with a well aimed swing sent it barrelling into the other. Biggs, suddenly awakening from the shock of it all, nicked one’s ear with the first bullet, the second of his pistol right between the eyes. 

But then Cloud was shoving him, pushing him back as flames engulfed the area. “Flamethrower!” 

“Shit, fallback, you two!” 

Biggs did just that as Barret distracted the main turret, covering his head as the second hellhound went over his head and crashed into the stacked concrete bags in a puff of white. He slid into a hiding spot beside Jessie just as Cloud ran out in the open.

“Is he stupid?!”

“Get out of there!” 

Yet he jumped inhumanly over the turret and the flamethrower troop spinning to follow the movement, a perfect opening for Jessie who shot right at the canister on the trooper’s back.

An explosion displaced the air and further ruined the rebar cage the man had been beside, the lines of metal splitting or tearing off and Avalanche ducked their heads to avoid fallen debris and flakes of concrete powder from the bags too close to the epicenter. 

Just as Cloud split the turret in half.

Only to shout for Avalanche to move as he cast Lightning straight at them.

And over their heads to the flying slug rays. They could hear the military truck grinding to a halt before troops weaved between the mess of crates and supplies and Avalanche made to fight back. Meanwhile, Cloud rolled out of the way as more flying machines left the reactor, bots he’d never seen before and more animal-like than the slug rays. They dived down like falcon’s and the sword he used as a shield was almost wrenched from his hands as it swept back up as it tried to grasp onto it. 

Casting Lightning was like asking a bliind man to aim. They moved and spun and their wings beat up out of range of anything he shot at them. 

Then something pierced his thigh and almost toppled him. He looked to Avalanche and the lone slug ray that’d past them. “Wedge!”

“Got ‘em!” 

It went down in seconds, but the bullet wound’s ache didn’t secede. This was gonna be a long mission. He kept his guard up when the birds swooped down at him, and he lurched forward when another round of troopers that came from the reactor building. His sword moved quick, slicing them like butter even though his leg protested.

“Is that, really you, Cloud?” 

He struck down the soldier quick and as painlessly as possible, barely realizing they hadn’t even raised their weapon at him before it was too late.

What was that? 

Something clipped his shoulder and nearly toppled him. A vulture swept up once again out of reach before he could even recover. 

But this time, there were no distractions. He raised his sword in wait, patient among the gunfire behind him, and swung with neck breaking speed and smashing the vulture’s wing. When it tried to dive back up, it careened until it clashed in Barret’s cover spot. “Watch it, kid!” 

The battle was waning. More troops and machines coated the ground among powdered concrete and snapped metal. When a single grenadier tried to slip around the group, Cloud rushed him, barely bringing his sword up in time to absorb most of the shock of one shot before smiting them with a controlled Blizzard and stopping them in their tracks. He wasted no time reaching for the few standard grenades around their belt and chucking them to Jessie who grinned devilishly. “You know what to do.”

“Heads down, boys!” she cried out just as a hound came across her hiding spot. 

He barely began to cast Fira when his outstretched arm nearly was pulled from its socket, his feat lifting from the ground as the vulture clamped down with its talons just above the wrist, only releasing when the Fire backfired and imploded. White hot pain laced his palm where the fire took off layers of skin and shocked the already torn skin and tendons from the vulture. But the thing let go to avoid the worst of the damage. 

“What is that thing?!” 

The vulture swept around Bigg’s bullets with ease, banking around Avalanche and the ground troopers left until sweeping down once more, aiming with talons ready right for—

“Jessie!”

She hadn’t even turned around before Cloud shoved her to the ground, and the talons embedded into either side of his clavicle, piercing skin and muscle all the same until he cried out.

Because it was pulling him up by sheer bone and torn muscle feat into the air with arrhythmic beats of its wings, climbing higher and higher.

“Cloud!” 

Bullets raided around him until they paused.

“You’re going to hit him!”

He could do this. He still held onto his sword in spite the white hot pain flaring and spreading from his shoulders and taking his breath away. He was careful to avoid the strange purple vials at it’s taloned feet and tried to swing up to no avail. Fine, magic it was. He’d pray Shiva would protect him in the fall. It swelled in his chest before the Thundara burst from him and shorting the bird, the canisters at its feet bursting with it’ engines, and suddenly they were careening down, the talon’s releasing, and he hoped he wouldn’t break a bone.

Gaia, he wished he did.

Because the sudden burst of pain that took up the entire side of his torso and thigh made him scream. And scream and he thought someone took a hot iron pitchfork to either wound. Blood coated his tongue and arching his back from the pain made it worse.

He couldn’t move.

He heard shouting. Nothing was in focus, and whatever sense of disconnect he usually had to missions and training was now a hot wire being yanked over and over. 

He could barely pick up his head, and he wished he didn’t.

Because the sight of the rebar protruding from his stomach and thigh would make anyone sick.

* * *

Wedge watched in slow motion as Cloud fell from stories up. He always thought of Cloud much like his cats, quiet and feisty, but strong and always landed on their feet. 

That blood curdling scream proved anything but. 

Falling straight onto the torn apart rebar cage and stopping midair as they skewered him like a piece of meat. 

Troopers shouted and he felt like he was in the tunnel again with Cloud, afraid and barely able to hold his weapon. He wouldn’t be a weak link, again. 

Twisting around and bracing his weapon on top of the crates, he took out the few men who thought they were vulnerable now. They should know better than to get on Avalanche’s bad side. 

* * *

Why was he here? 

Why was he here?

Where’s the other guards?

Why was he here?

He barely had the energy to scream as Masamune was wrenched from his stomach. 

* * *

Biggs, Barret, and Jessie crowded Cloud, climbing what rebar was secure to reach their gasping comrade. 

Biggs gulped. Gaia, there was so much blood.

And Cloud writhed like a pierced insect with nowhere to go, the sight sickening.

“Barret.”

He barely registered Jessie’s whine.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Their leader climbed just a bit higher and moved to grip Cloud’s chin. “Aye, eyes on me.” But those mako eyes hid behind squinted lids. “You’re going to be fine. We got you.” He let go to look back at his comrades. “Jessie, I have a job for you.”

The girl was as white as Cloud and holding the same sickly pallor. 

But Barret all the same shoved the green materia into her hands. “I need you to cast a healing spell the moment we pull him off.”

“But- I’ve never had to heal something like this.”

“I know. But I need you to focus.” He gripped her shoulder tightly, and as calm as he looked at her, his grip revealed his fear in its slight shake. “It’ll take two of us to pull him off the rebar, and you’re not strong enough. I need you to do this, okay? You’re going to cast it when I say so, nothing more. Can you do that for me?”

Her lip wobbled, but she couldn’t cry now. Not when he needed her. “Okay.” 

“Biggs.”

“Got it.” The two moved around him, careful not to misplace anymore of the rebar in fear of hurting Cloud. “Take his leg.”

Having only one hand was a hassle but not impossible to work with, as Barret wrapped his gun arm beneath Cloud’s thigh. Biggs took his upper half, focusing on where the rebar went straight through his torso. “Ready, Jessie?” 

She held the materia in a deathly grip. He almost thought it would shatter. “Ready.”

“One, two, three, Now!”

Even as Cloud screamed, Biggs could hear the slick metal and flesh giving around it as they lifted him. And as quickly as they lifted him was he bathed in green, the magic encasing him until he screamed all the harder and writhing in their hands to the point of nearly dropping him. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“Help us get him down!” 

* * *

He shriveled up as his hair singed, wanting the burning to stop, wanting out of the burning house, the scorched streets. Flames licked his skin that curdled back at contact while sweat matted his hair and his mouth grew dry. He could barely swallow past the smoke and reek of blood as everything he knew crumbled to ashes. 

Someone smiled beyond the fl(A)mes.

* * *

“I don’t, — I’m sorry — I don’t know what I did wrong!” 

But Barret was already moving, pulling the bandana off Bigg’s head before throwing it back at him. “Make a tourniquet around his leg,” He commanded as he slipped out of his sleeveless jacket. “Sorry, kid.” He knelt beside Cloud and pressed the clothing to his pooling side. The boy gasped and gripped Barret’s hand’s deathly tight. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. Jessie, give me the materia. One more time, okay, Cloud?” 

He let the energy pass through him, using his body as a channel between the spell and letting it flow over the boy.

But it was all the same, Cloud shouted and writhed, and this time Barret lost feeling in his wrist at how tightly Cloud held him. “What the hell?”

Biggs pulled back the torn pant leg that the tourniquet surrounded. “Barret,” he warned, but he’d already seen it, already realized.

The injury itself singed red, as if he’d taken a soldering iron to his flesh to cauterize it. “Fuck.” He’d never seen it before, but his body was rejecting the spell. “Why?”

Jessie held Cloud’s head carefully as he thrashed lightly until something caught her eye. “Guys.” Carefully, she pulled at the sleeveless sweater and pulled the hem to reveal his shredded collarbone. Blue veins, nearly purple and like lightning webbed from the wounds, right where the vulture had sank its talons in. “Poison?”

“Since when does Shinra use poisons?” Biggs was on his feet in seconds and seeking out the downed troopers, patting at their utility belts. 

“You’re not carrying an antidote?”

“Again, since fucking when does Shinra use poisons?!” Jessie had never heard him curse like that. “Fuck. Help me look.”

* * *

He scratched at his neck where the needles pierced his skin, but hands soon came to pull his wrists aside, ordering him to stop as what they put in him drowned his conscience, laughed at how he writhed, scribbled notes on clipboards e(V)aluating him when it felt like he was boiling from the inside out.

Why was he here?

Where’s Barret?

* * *

He hadn’t seen it, but he’d heard the thing fall. Biggs sought out the fallen vulture, not finding an antidote but having an idea. He found it where Barret had taken cover and taking note as Wedge finished off the final straggler. The bigger man quickly ran to him and knelt beside Biggs as he studied the thing’s body. “Is Cloud okay?”

He seethed through his teeth at no one. “No. But this,” he said when the purple vial disengaged from the rest of the vulture’s leg, “should be our ticket.”

“What is that? Some sort of poison?” 

“More than likely. C’mon, we gotta get going.” They were jogging back to Cloud who took on a sickly pallor, almost grey and sheened with sweat. “I have an idea. You know that apothecary in Sector 5?”

“The one you met at the orphanage?”

“That’s the one. If I give her a sample, she may be able to make an antidote. Or if anything, she can keep his temperature down while the Mako fights it.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Give me a hand.” 

“C’mon, Cloud, work with us.”

* * *

Bathed in green. It glowed past his closed lids and sang sweet promises like a lullaby even as blood seeped from him and dribbled down Masamune.

_“You were to(O) weak.”_

* * *

In spite it all, dragging Cloud between Biggs and Wedge as Barret gunned down anyone who stepped into his line of sight, they reached to rendezvous and just in time, too.

“Hurry up! I had to go around a few blocks to not be spotted, but— Cloud?” Tifa paused suddenly, jumping from the van’s driver seat and gently lifting Cloud’s head. “Cloud? Cloudy? What’s wrong?”

“Poison.”

“Oh gods, okay, okay, let’s get going. Where to?”

“Sector 5.” They settled Cloud gently onto the floor of the van.

“To the Wutain doctor? Get in, hurry. They know we’re here and are patrolling the roads.” 

Wedge put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. Get in the back with Cloud, Tifa. He needs you.”

“Okay, thanks, Wedge.”

* * *

A cacophonic melody. A crescendo of calls and cries and laughter bubbling to the surface of the mako like seconds before the curtain call. A soft voice among them all, ge(N)tle and warm when no one else was.

* * *

“Mo.... ther.”

Tifa lightly gripped his hair, his head cradled on her lap as the fever took. “Oh, Cloud.”

“It’s gonna be okay, Teef, the doc’s gonna watch him while Biggs’ gets an apothecary to work on an antidote.” Barret hoped the words would be enough for now. 

“They’re gaining on us!” 

“I got this, just keep driving.” Jessie carefully opened the back of the van with the bomb meant for the reactor in hand. “Guess you’re useful after all.” The timer set for only seconds, she tossed it before slamming the door shut. “Drive, drive, drive!” 

Though concentrated, the car shook at the explosion.

Biggs uncovered his ears cautiously. “You think it took out the whole bridge?”

“Oh yah, it’s toast,” said Wedge at the wheel. “Almost there guys.” 

They had to abandon the car and carry him the rest of way, pulling into the last car of the train and keeping their fingers crossed. The track from above plate to the slums was long and draining to wait through. Cloud leant against the wall, his head resting on Tifa’s shoulder as she rubbed at his heated yet shivering arms. 

His eyes bore into the far wall, seeing nothing in his glazed gaze. He breathed laborly, as if he’d run all the way here and not laid on the floor of a van. She nudged him when he started to hunch forward. “Hey, Cloud, you gotta stay awake, okay? Stay awake for me.”

“Ah, man.” Biggs came to kneel in front of the SOLDIER, slowly pulling at the hem of the sweater. “It’s spreading fast.”

At the touch, Cloud wheezed painfully, and suddenly, Cloud’s gaze grew wide and intense at the arm touching him, pushing his head back against the train car. “. . . Don’. . . Please.” He squirmed, trying to get away from the touch until Bigg’s stepped back. But Cloud stared at him not moving as if he spotted a predator, clenching tightly to Tifa’s arm like it were his only line of defense. . .

* * *

Stop it, stop. Please, no more. Stop replacing his blood with Mako. It burns, it hurts. Make it stop make it stop make it stop mak(E) it stop make itstop makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop . . . . 

* * *

“No. . . no more.” 

“Cloud?”

“Shit. I don’t think he’s even here.”

“He’s shaking.”

“Confusion? Maybe hallucinating?”

“Who knows. Those bastards are gonna pay.”

* * *

Memories were blurred, muffled, or silenced. Faces— faces that shown like the sun were empty.

_“—I’d feel a lot better if I knew. . .”_

Who?

_“. . . Someone to keep you on the straight and narrow. . . “_

A chorus that swept through the house like a beacon. Voices of familiar strangers, faceless, and (J)oyous as they beaconed him forward. 

_“ . . . Promise you’ll come and save me . . .”_

Where are you?

_“No more fuck ups.”_

He promised.

* * *

He latched onto Tifa when they tried to put him on the doctor’s table, his grip vice around her arm, and she did everything she could think of to sooth him. “Shh, shh, it’s okay, Cloud. You’re going to be okay.” The grip was painful and she held back her whine by squeezing his forearm back. 

“Tifa?” 

“I’m here.” She combed her fingers through his sweat damp hair. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

Biggs had already separated from them to work on an antidote while the doctor would try to keep his fever down. Something gooey and wretched in smell was spread across the singed wounds at his shoulders like jam, maybe an antiseptic, while the thigh would be sewn. 

When Cloud wriggled and whined painfully, Tifa begged, “Can’t you give him something for the pain? Or anesthesia?”

“The Mako burns right through it. Barret, Wedge, hold his legs and arm for me. Jessie, hold his head, gently.”

“I’m so sorry, Cloud.” 

Wedge came forward quickly to hold the injured thigh in place. “Remember, Tifa, we’re doing this to help him.”

She hadn’t cried thus far, wanting to stay strong for him until she could break down somewhere far out of sight, but now it was bubbling over and she could barely hold back the choked sob. “He’s in so much pain.” _And I can’t do anything._

“And he won’t be as soon as Biggs gets back.”

Barret hummed in agreement where he pinned Cloud’s arm and other leg. “Ready, doc.”

* * *

Biggs had only met her a few times when he visited the old orphanage. From what he knew, her green thumb brought flowers and herbs to flourish under the plate in amounts unimaginable. Her flowers were smashed into dyes while her herbs made medicinal teas and ailment treatments. He remembered when a fever had spread through the whole orphanage and when he thought he would have to trade chalk and handmade toys with a shovel, a girl just years younger than him seemingly saved them overnight. Not a single death. 

She was a miracle worker in these parts and loved by all. He just hoped she would remember him. 

* * *

Skin blistering hot to the touch, Barret wondered how Cloud was even semi-conscious, still trying to kick them off as they kept him from clawing at his own neck as he whimpered pathetically. 

All he could think of was Jessie being on this table, how things could have been very different with purplish veins wrapping around her neck like vines, choking her until her body couldn’t fight it.

Dammit, Cloud, always making him care. 

“You better pull through, kid, or I’ll kick your ass.”

At the comment, Tifa snapped her head towards him. Whatever she wanted to say, she bit back, but he knew without her being vocal. _“You do anything, you’ll be joining him.”_

Suddenly, Jessie slammed through the house’s doors, holding them open. “Guys, Biggs’s here.” And indeed he was, carrying with two hands a small pot with a lid that he set beside Cloud whose focus had gone somewhere far. The man was panting heavily and nearly collapsing as his knees buckled. He panted out, “Drink it. He needs to drink it, then pour some on the — the infected area.” 

The doctor was shouting orders, getting Barret and Tifa to bring Cloud to a sitting position to administer the antidote as Jessie asked, “where’s the apothecary?”

“Making a soothing agent, or anti-inflammatory. So he’ll be able to sleep.”

“But the Mako—”

“She says it’ll work.”

Parting his lips and forcing a ladle full of the antidote into his mouth, Cloud didn’t react, even as it dribbled down his front. The doctor forced his mouth closed until he swallowed and repeated. “Jessie, finish removing his shirt. We need access to the wounds.”

And she did so with some lousy kitchen scissors and pulling the cloth away from his shoulders and neck. “Oh, gods.”

The veins had crept down his chest and over his heart. 

The doctor did as the apothecary had directed and poured the antidote over the mauled, singed injuries on either side of his shoulders. “Once it kicks in, we’ll use materia.” It’s why the doctor hadn’t sewn the injury at his stomach. The materia was more likely to save his life than thread and needle, and combining both would only worsen the pain in the long run. If his patient weren’t a SOLDIER, it would be different, but mixing treatments meant it’d be likelier the body would reject the stitches. He eyed the boy on the table, whose only color came from the blood that coated his skin. 

Poor thing was shell-shocked if his fugue state was anything to go by. He’d seen it in plenty of SOLDIERS and Wutain warriors to know how injuries as little as needing a few butterfly stitches or burn cream could spiral them somewhere very far and unreachable. He can only hope Cloud won’t remember any of this.

* * *

. . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

. . . Where?

He grit his teeth when his stomach tightened painfully. 

Even with his eyes closed everything was too bright, the heat of the overhead lamp too hot and the moisture in his hair giving him goosebumps. 

But there was a hand in his hair that carded through the tangled strands with a gentleness he didn’t remember knowing. Another traced circles on his palm that tickled and with what little strength he could muster, he softly stopped the finger with a gentle hold.

There was a gasp and the hand paused in his hair before leaving to clasp around his hand. 

“It’s okay, Cloud. Sleep.”

And he did.

* * *

“What are you doing awake?”

Jessie nearly jumped off the roof she had perched on at the voice just behind her ear. “For Atlas sake, Biggs! Don’t do that!”

Even with the scolding, he plopped down beside her. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“‘Cause you're an ass.”

He didn’t retort, didn’t even look at her and suddenly she felt self conscious, wrapping her arms around her legs. 

“I just. I keep thinking. . .”

“Thinking if it was you,” he finished for her. She hummed in agreement. “You think it's your fault.”

“I didn’t see it coming. I could’ve dodged, gotten out of the way, and we wouldn’t have been in this mess. He wouldn’t be—“

“Stop that.”

“It’s my fault.”

“If that was me, Wedge, or Barret in your position would you be saying that?”

“You wouldn’t have been caught off guard like that.”

“Trust me, I wouldn’t be here if not for Cloud. None of us would be, and you know that. So quit blaming yourself and get some rest. You think Cloud would want you out here worrying about him?”

She wiped at her nose and bit back a smile. “He’d tell us to get over it.”

“And threaten anyway whose slacking. Which is why we need you rested up and ready to move back to the bar tomorrow. C’mon, get up.”

“You suck at this comforting stuff.”

“‘Least I’m not Cloud.”

The two snorted at that. 

* * *

The next time he wakes, it’s to bustling of metal pots and pans and egg smelling water and murmurs too unfocused to pick up on what they’re saying. He inhaled deeply only to cough so violently it strained his sore throat. 

“Easy, short breaths, okay?”

Wedge?

His eyelids felt as heavy as the weight of the world, and he wondered how Atlas could ever have such strength. But in painful blinks, he was. . . not focused. Blurry. Everything was fuzzy and muffled, but he recognized the soft squeeze to his forearm.

“Doc says your throat’s still a little swollen, so no talking yet. Here, let me get you some water.”

On any other day, he would refuse an offer of egg-wretched smelling pipe water, but today he could barely lift his head that Wedge carefully cradled and Cloud tasted what might have been water straight from the fountain of youth. 

It took a moment to realize he wasn’t in his apartment or Sector Seven, but somewhere still familiar. He ignored when Wedge tried to stop him from sitting up in spite of the flaring pain. “Wh-” he started only to choke. He sounded like he’d swallowed a frog. “Where’s everyone?” 

“Making breakfast. They’d be happy to see you awake. Here, give me sec,” he said before getting up from the chair beside the bed to enter the main part of the house not realizing Cloud had already swung his legs over and stood on wobbly legs to follow. “Guess who’s awake?”

“Cloud!” Tifa was yelling horrified at seeing him over Wedge’s shoulder. “Why are you out of bed?”

“One job, Wedge.”

“Whoa, easy,” Wedge gripped his elbow and guided him to a chair like he was someone’s gramps. Tifa surged forward, leaving her post in the kitchen to kneel in front of him and place the back of her hand against his forehead. He lent back but nonetheless she sighed in relief. “The fever broke.” 

Softly swatting her hand away, he leant forward and asked, “Did we do it?”

Tifa looked to Barret who settled in his seat across from Cloud. “How much do you remember?”

“Tried to get into the reactor. Shinra knew we were there and ambushed us. . . Machines and infantry . . . Then I was falling and. . .” _Then what?_ “Don’t know anything after that.” 

“Nothing?”

“Why else would I be asking you?” Cloud miffed. 

Sensing the tension, Wedge offered, “It’s probably from the poison. You were pretty out of it.”

By why can’t he remember? He knew it was there, the memories likely bad, but he needed to know. Why was his head pounding? 

“Well, since you’re up, ‘guess we can head back to Sector Seven. The bar ain’t gonna run itself.” When an elbow knocked in Barret’s side, he added, “Better to continue as usual to not raise suspicions.”

“Yah. . . Let’s get going.”

They were paying the doctor he recognized as the one to help Tifa in what felt like a long time ago before guiding Cloud out into Sector Five to which he quickly knocked off their guiding hands and touches. It made his skin itch. At least he was thankful someone thought to pick up more gil because Jessie stood at the chocobo stop carriage ready and everything. She waved excitedly “Cloud! My knight in shiny armour!” 

“Is Biggs back at base?” questioned Wedge as they approached. 

“Actually, paying the apothecary. He’ll meet us later.”

Doctor, chocobo ride, and now an apothecary? How are they even affording this? 

Why are they spending it on him? 

Did they complete the mission?

“Hurry up,” Barret said but without his usual bite, “we don’t got all day.”

It was a tight squeeze, Cloud’s leg pressed against Barret and his shoulder, still feeling bruised and strained, leaning into the side of the cart, while the other three situated themselves on the opposite bench with Jessie decided to take the floor at some point. 

She lent her head back against the cart before turning to smile at him.

“I’m glad you're alright, Cloud.”

He nodded even though it hurt his neck before something caught his eye: a sheer white bandage patch on her left cheek he’d been ignoring. “What’s that?”

“Oh.” She tapped the patch lightly as her smile faltered. “One of the dogs got to me.”

He stared at her credulously. He remembered that, and remembered aiming a fire spell at the hound before getting attacked by that . . . the vulture.

She had cried out, didn’t she? 

_Too weak._

He gulped around the lump in his throat. 

The mission was a failure.

* * *

He pretended to sleep to avoid anymore conversation as his thoughts stirred into something dark and angry. They whispered above him, describing plans and pretending he didn't fuck up. The chocobo cart had barely come to a halt when he was pushing out the door and heading for his apartment. 

“Hey, wait up!” 

“Not now, Tifa.”

“Cloud.” He paused at the desperation in her voice and for a moment it felt like he was fourteen again on top of that water tower. Young and ignorant, not knowing how his own weakness would get everyone killed. “What’s wrong?”

“I want to be alone.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

She didn’t get it and that's okay. That's why he's supposed to be here. “Let me know when’s the next mission. I’ll be ready,” he said before continuing his way to the apartment. It wasn’t even until he opened the door that he realized he didn’t have his sword. There it was, leaning against the far wall beside the bed as if he’d left it there. 

_Weak._

Even as his arm protested, he guided the sword to the harness he still wore and grit his teeth when the weight messed with the pain in his side. He didn’t look, didn’t want to know how badly he failed them. 

He was out the door as quickly as he came, taking a wide berth around Seventh Heaven and to the junkyard.

He wouldn’t be a liability again. He wouldn’t be weak and force another mission failure like that. He was better than this. Fuck, he was a SOLDIER, for Shiva’s sake. He was supposed to be the one others could rely on, be their hero, their savior, their first and last line of defense, no one else. Cloud fucking Strife was not weak. 

_“No more fuck ups,”_ Barret had warned.

“No more fuck ups.”

* * *

“You think he’s going to be okay?”

“He always is.”

"I'm not sure this time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never said Cloud would be thankful for their help. . .  
> 6k words later and this fic is still semi-canon compliant!  
> Thank you so much for reading! This was so much fun to write and I hope to continue with more FFVII fics in the future. Feel free to ask questions or comments!


End file.
